


Say it out loud

by CamilleDuDemon



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Developing Relationship, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Minor Injuries, Mixed POV, lots of talking, mentions of canon-typical violence, some angsty moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 17:51:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16581221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamilleDuDemon/pseuds/CamilleDuDemon
Summary: Somehow, he knows Artur likes expensive tablecloths. He just doesn’t know how this information can be relevant now, or how will it be in the immediate future. Not to mention he doesn’t remember when or where he has gathered this personal information, nor if it was Arthur himself who told him he liked bloody tablecloths.“Found you hooked up and I couldn’t resist the urge to come here and tell you not to waste your precious time on self-loathing”, he finally says, and he’s able to catch the faintest glimpse of Arthur’s shoulders quivering in a sigh.“What if I was just running tests? Did this eventuality even cross your mind, Eames?”“Honestly? No. Not even for a split second.”Eames can hear Arthur mutter ‘asshole’ under his breath. He’s sure he deserves that, someway, for his past, present and future recklessness.





	Say it out loud

“I didn’t know you were a fan of Italian-style Baroque buildings…”

Eames’ voice echoes through the large, sparsely furnished room, alongside his footsteps which - though they’re always so silent - reverberate through Arthur’s very bones, making him flinch imperceptibly in the milky light that comes from the large window.

“I’m not, in facts”, he says, apparently carelessly, folding his arms and stubbornly avoiding to turn and face his,  _ well,  _ unexpected guest. “I come here to meditate. And, you know, you shouldn’t have followed me.”

Eames shrugs.

_ Of course he knows. _

Yet, whichever sort of affection he has always felt for Arthur even before they started fucking - because that’s what they do, they fuck, no commitment or whatsoever, just a good fuck whenever they get to between a job and another, that’s what he likes to repeat to himself on a loop when he fondly watches at a peacefully asleep Arthur after a night spent together doing things that don’t require clothes of any sort - got the upper hand, so here he is, intruding into his mind without asking for permission as if Arthur was another target, another job.  _ Motivations aside, naturally. _

So, what can he say? The truth or a comfortable, blatant lie? He’s good at lying, after all, and besides Arthur wouldn’t ask any further question, even though he could simply  _ know  _ that he was lying to his face.

Or to his shoulders, since he hasn’t dared to move yet.

But, due to the fact he has promised Arthur he would have been honest with him once in a while, Eames can’t help but spill the truth as if he was spilling his tea all over an expensive silky tablecloth.

_ Somehow, he knows Artur likes expensive tablecloths. He just doesn’t know how this information can be relevant now, or how will it be in the immediate future. Not to mention he doesn’t remember when or where he has gathered this personal information, nor if it was Arthur himself who told him he liked bloody tablecloths. _

“Found you hooked up and I couldn’t resist the urge to come here and tell you not to waste your precious time on self-loathing”, he finally says, and he’s able to catch the faintest glimpse of Arthur’s shoulders quivering in a sigh.

“What if I was just running tests? Did this eventuality even cross your mind, Eames?”

“Honestly? No. Not even for a split second.”

Eames can hear Arthur mutter ‘ _ asshole’  _ under his breath. He’s sure he deserves that, someway, for his past, present and future recklessness. Knowing that, though, doesn’t mean he’s going to be more careful from now on, because that’s not how he works, and Arthur is painfully aware of that, since most of their bickering is about methods and strategies or him getting triggered by something that Eames has done or said. 

_ His recklessness has saved many, many asses during his years in the business, yet Arthur isn’t bloody able to deal with it. Because Arthur is Arthur, Arthur is a meticulous prick, a perfectionist, and in his most humble opinion everyone should behave accordingly to that. _

_ That’s one of the many reasons that drew Eames this close to him in the first place, as much as this may fall under the umbrella of the ten things Eames hates about him. _

“Why do you always behave like you’re some kind of village idiot, when you can clearly outsmart us all?”

There’s a hint of frustration into Arthur’s voice, the same mix of anger and annoyance that someone experiences when they cannot open a jar that has been closed too tightly or understand the plot of a very complex low budget movie. Eames dares to take some steps towards him: when he outstretches his hand to place it on Arthur’s waist, the perfectionist fucker backs away, leaving him frowning with his hand hanging in mid-air.

“Because that’s convenient,  _ darling _ ”, he smugly says, then. “It’s part of the show. Let everyone think that they’re better than you, be the hero in the shadows and bla bla bla.”

Clearly bugged by his contemptuous tone, finally Arthur turns, giving him some sort of scolding, stern look.

“Fuck you, Eames. I mean it.”

And he’s right, Eames thinks, he should jump off the nearest window and go fuck himself somewhere else until him and Arthur meet again.  _ Why the hell did he think this would have been a good idea? Sneaking into his dream for what?  _

Good question, yeah, that’s a good question. The truth is, he sneaked in without having a plan. And, though he should be glad to improvise since he’s a forger and a general expert in cheating at the poker table, improvising with Arthur has never been the best option, or an option at all; with Arthur, it’s always walking on eggshells and cautiously choosing the right words - or, at least, it had been for a very long time.

“Please”, he whispers, then. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t...what?”

He shrugs, and Arthur knows better this is a way to dissimulate his discomfort: they’re both quit terrible when it comes to real talking, unless it is driven by a steamy sex session or alcohol-induced logorrhoea of some sorts. That’s why they have stuck with the rather simple formula “less talking, more fucking”. It’s easier, it’s safer. It creates an invisible line no one of them has tried to cross, not until now, not in real life.

“Don’t shut me off”, Eames lets out with a sigh, desperately rummaging into the pockets of his vintage, well pressed slacks looking for a cigarette. Some has comfort food, some others comfort smoke. But, hey, this is not his dream, so his pockets are sadly empty.

Arthur, however, hands him a half-smoked Marlboro. “Smoke as you want, it won’t burn more than this”, he says, taking a drag himself and breathing out a cloud of blue smoke slightly turning his head on the right.

_ How polite. _

“Thanks.”

The cigarette tastes stale, old, as if it had been wet and dried many many times, but Eames doesn’t feel like he’s in the best position to complain.  _ You wanted a cig, here’s your cig.  _ Something like that. Still, there’s something else off in the taste he can feel on his tongue, somehow coppery and salty, like rust or--

 

_ Blood. _

 

“Why am I bleeding?”, he frowns, realizing his lower lip is split and that now he can feel a dull, thudding pain in his jaw. Quickly, he tries to clean it off, but the damned thing won’t stop bleeding.

Arthur makes a vague gesture with his fine hand.

“Because we often end up fighting, in my dreams.”

“And you punch me right in the face.”

“Exactly. Right here”, he breathes out, pressing a finger onto the small gash and leaving it there for one too many seconds, before pulling it back and folding his arms again into his neatly tailored Armani suit. The air feels static, like when there’s a storm approaching, but Eames guesses that’s just because of them, because of their proximity, their dangerous connection in a place where they shouldn’t be connected at all. Arthur had been very, very clear on the matter, more than once: no mushy stuff, aside the inevitable aftersex cuddles that only happen when they’re both in a particular mood - exhausted, mostly, or very, very relaxed. But that happens so rarely Eames is starting to suspect that it has only been a product of his twisted imagination when he has had one too many shots of Southern Comfort.

“Do you want to take a little walk?”, Arthur asks, unceremoniously taking the perpetually half-smoked cigarette away from his sealed lips and placing it on a bulky crystal ashtray, with his usual infuriating taste for symmetry and order.

_ “Bloody hell, Arthur, you really behave like a perfect cadet, don’t you”, he had once told him, while he was trying to fold his shirt in order to prevent wrinkling after Eames had tried to be civilized enough not to rip it off his chest, his pants already feeling too tight for his taste. Arthur had scoffed and, forgetting about the shirt, he has repeated Rule One: “less talking, more fucking”. _

“Do you want me to take a walk with you?”

Arthur rolls his eyes.

“Don’t get too excited, you’re not getting anywhere near my personal stuff. I just”, he stops, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I just don’t like you being here, looking at me as if you’re expecting...something.”

Eames can’t help but burst into a throaty laugh.

“Sorry to disappoint you, darling, but that’s exactly the reason why I’m here and not...somewhere else, drowning in self-pity and sense of guilt all alone”, he says, screw the whole ‘walking on eggshells’ part. Arthur stiffens up so much Eames thinks he’s going to break into a thousand tiny shards if he dares to touch him now. Nevertheless, it’s the almost unnoticeable flickering of his eyelids that reassures Eames about the fact that he hasn’t broken him... _ not yet. _

He really, really doesn’t want to but still, Arthur looks like someone who’s on the verge of breaking on his own, constantly, and now that they are in a dream Eames allows himself to be more direct, more sincere - on the other side, in the real world, he wouldn’t. He knows himself well enough to be sure as hell of that.

“I’m not drowning in self-pity and sense of guilt”, Arthur states, blushing slightly in the graysh light that permeates the whole scenario, wet and cold like an autumn in London.

_ A fucking Italian style Baroque villa plunged into the bloody English weather.  _

_ Arthur’s mind works in mysterious ways. _

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Arthur doesn’t reply. Instead, he leads Eames across the huge room and then, opening a heavy wooden door decorated with golden, chubby cherubs and painted with overflowing cornucopias, through the perfectly neat gardens, built in a religious perspective and with the outmost respect for XVIII century Italy’s taste. The clouds gather above them, threateningly swollen and dark, but Arthur leads, and Eames follows.

_ Arthur obviously wishes to things to always be like this, with him leading and Eames following. Sadly, things turn out to be far more complicated than that, in the world that exists outside the pristine perfection of his mind. _

 

“Eames?”

They’re sitting by a small waterfall, now. Nothing more than a pool of water with a couple of fancy rocks, the miniature of a marble goddess Athena Tritonia and some soft, wet musk.

If the situation was - well - lighter, Eames would surely joke about how  _ wet  _ this dream is, but it happens that even someone like him owns common sense and therefore knows when to carefully avoid being inappropriate.

_ Definitely not the best time for some sexual innuendos or a pun of any sort. _

“Yes, darling?”

Arthur gives him a weirdly soft, vulnerable and childish look, and Eames feels his stomach clench painfully.

“I don’t want to talk about what happened in Berlin”, he whispers, fidgeting with the shiny buttons of his blazer. Gingerly, Eames squeezes at his thigh and Arthur doesn’t back away - this is a good, very good sign, that he interpretes as an unspoken permission to touch him, comfort him perhaps, so he feels confident enough to take his hand into his own and give that damned shiny buttons some rest.

“See, I wouldn’t talk about it either, but it happens that we’re both involved in this and, well, that this might jeopardize our future jobs together so...we need to talk, Arthur. And, believe me, I’m as astonished as you are for saying this.”

He ends up chuckling, though it’s not funny at all. Arthur merely shakes his head, openly disapproving both his words and his half laugh.

“What can I say except that I fucked up? Like a fucking rookie?”, he snorts, tightening his clasp around Eames’ fingers so much they feel numb when he finally sets them free.

It’s Eames’ turn to shake his head, though.

“No, no, no, don’t you ever dare to say that.  _ We  _ fucked up, at best. We both fucked up. So, please, stop blaming it on you and you alone. We were both in that fake cellar, so we’re both to blame. And blame what, exactly? Things turned out perfectly fine, we went through with the job, and that should be the end of the story. You shouldn’t be here reprimanding yourself in your golden cage.”

He has ended up yelling. Well, not exactly yelling, but still, that wasn’t what he wanted, nor planned when he found Arthur unconscious on that mangy old couch in the abandoned warehouse that’s serving as their headquarter for some research work.

_ It’s just that sometimes he does things he doesn’t intend to, especially when he’s not wearing any sort of mask. _

_ Being earnest has never been his forte, that’s why - he supposes - he’s not very good at it. _

Arthur pinches the bridge of his nose again, carefully rubbing away whichever discomfort he’s feeling, then he gives a quick look to the watch and sighs heavily.

“Stop pretending to know something about me, Eames”, he simply hisses, just to buy some time.

Eames doesn’t buy his pathetic recital, though.

“I’m not pretending. I know how much you love to torture yourself over your mistakes and, let me tell you this, behaving this way won’t make a perfect robot who makes no mistakes at all out of you.”

_ Fuck you,  _ is the first thing Arthur is going to say. The second should be bringing his gun out of his pocket and make a sizzling hole in the middle of Eames’ forehead, but he chooses not to do either one of said things. Instead, he pinches the bridge of his nose harder and harder, until he digs his own well manicured fingernails into the tender flesh and draws some blood as a form of self-inflicted torment.

_ He fucked up. _

_ It’s his fault. _

_ He must punish himself. _

_ Linear, simple, what it was and what it will always be in secula seculorum, amen. _

“No, you listen to me, Eames. I should have shot you, all right? As soon as I found you in a pool of your own blood, struggling to breathe, I should have ended your agony. And, no, please, don’t interrupt”, he says, when Eames opens his mouth to speak. It remains agape for a split second, though, all plush lips, rosy gums and slightly crooked teeth. “And I didn’t, I didn’t shoot you, because you asked me to keep you company while you bled out and I, like an idiot, complied.”

_ Can you imagine how much can this affect my relationship with what’s real and what’s not? _ , he wants to say, but he understands with a simple glance into Eames’ steel blue eyes that it would be unnecessary to specify what’s already obvious.

_ They mixed up dream and reality. _

_ The very deadly sin of everyone who’s in the same business as them. _

_ The shit that made Mal commit suicide and Dom almost stuck in the damned Limbo. _

“Hey, I am to blame, not you. I was the one who asked you for your jacket and a shoulder to which, well, die on”, Eames replies drawing lazy circles on the back of his hand hoping that this small gesture of affection would somehow soothe Arthur’s gnawing guilt.

Arthur lets out a low grunt.

“Yes, and I should have told you that everything was going to be all right and shoot you in the head because there are rules that mustn’t be broken, not even...not even…”

This time, Arthur can’t stand to say what he wants and needs to say out loud. It would be extremely stupid if he did, counterproductive too, if he thinks about all of the possible outcomes carefully. So, no, he shuts his mouth on that crucial  _ ‘not even when there are feelings involved’ _ and lets Eames guess what he wanted to say on his own, because that smug bastard surely knows it even though none of them has the guts to voice it out.

Eames frowns, tilting his head on a side like a curious puppy, and then bites at his bruised lip. It has stopped bleeding, but it still tastes like fresh blood, even though it has caked in the corner of his mouth.

“You’re scared. You’re scared you’ve lost touch with reality”, he states, not even bothering to ask whether he’s right or not because he knows, he knows he’s right.

“Scared?”, Arthur says, abruptly flinching away and running his hand through his once combed hair nervously. “I’m not scared, Eames, I’m fucking terrified! I was there when Mal gave up on reality, all right? I was there through it all. I was there wondering if that was a possibility at all and now look at me, watch me as I fucking do the same by cradling your dying projection into my arms and wondering if I’ll ever see you again. Because yes, that’s how things went, all right? For a moment, I thought you were dying.  _ For real.” _

Eames doesn’t know how to react at that unexpected confession.

Improvisation seems to be not enough to face this.

_ He should have never sneaked in, he thinks, he should have never sneaked in. _

 

***

 

When he gets out of the cab that got him there from the airport, Barcelona is already basking in the orange light of the setting sun. 

He hasn’t spoken with Arthur since their last work together, when he had that brilliant idea of peering into his subconscious and have a talk that went nowhere and left him with more questions than answers, no phone calls or Skype conferences, not even a text for a quickie or a blowjob on the go.

Nevertheless, he always knows where to find Arthur and, since he has made up his mind quite nicely while counting cards at the green tables in Las Vegas, he thinks it’s time for a talk. A real talk. A real talk in the real world.

_ A man facing another, not two projections floating in the beautiful and utterly artificial frame of a Baroque villa somewhere in a made-up Southern Italy where the weather is just as bad as London’s. _

As he enters the sliding doors of the hotel, Eames thinks it’s posh enough for Arthur, for his sophisticated taste and apparently limitless budget while on a job.

Once he has persuaded the lovely girl at the front desk in the hall to reveal him a couple of things that should be protected by international privacy laws, it’s just a matter of choosing the right words and tell Arthur a couple of things he needs to hear.

_ Just a matter of choosing the right words and telling Arthur a couple of things he needs to hear, yeah, nothing that difficult. _

When he enters the small, carpeted elevator and pushes the fifth floor button, Eames feels the same rush of adrenaline he still experiences whenever he’s cheating at a casino table, or in a foggy gambling house.

_ Which, on one hand, makes him feel terribly nervous. _

_ But still. _

_ In for a penny, in for a pound. _

 

When he knocks at Arthur’s door, Eames realizes he’s got sweaty palms. And, to be fair, the last time he had  _ real  _ sweat on his  _ real  _ hands he was still in school, drooling over - and not just, well, drooling - the yearbook picture of a major hottie brunette who was two years older and rocked the school uniform pretty damn fine with those long legs.

If he thinks about it, though, Arthur too can definitely be classified as a hottie brunette with bloody long legs, and this thought makes him chuckle a little while he waits, leaning on the doorframe like a pompous 40’s Hollywood star.

“Jesus Christ, Eames!”, Arthur says, after he had pointed a gun to his damned chest. “You could at least call…”

Eames is not one for phone calls, though. He’s more of a ‘dropping in’ guy.

_ Improvisation, adding the infamous element of surprise: ain’t those two of the major talents of a forger? _

“And good evening to you, darling”, he says, smiling, once Arthur has lowered his gun. “Is the job that dangerous to justify such a poor regard for your guests?”

Arthur rolls his eyes. A strand of silky, dark hair has fallen on his forehead, weirdly out of place.

“It’s just regular stuff, but one can’t feel too confident, isn’t it?”, he says, rubbing some exhaustion from his eyes and letting Eames in.

He’s staying in a suite, and Eames reacts to its opulence with an approving whistling. So un-Arthur to choose to sleep in a room like this, which means that he’s impersonating someone else for the job.

_ Speaking about someone who remarkably lacks in imagination. _

“Who are you impersonating, this time? You’re not one for suites and expensive shit”, he remarks, tasting the softness of the mattress with his butt and letting out a pleasured groan when he finally lays down, arms spread and legs dangling from the edge.

Arthur, predictably, is on the verge of telling him to fuck off, again.

“A high-profile lawyer, thanks for asking”, he says, sarcasm turning his words into dripping poison or battery acid, while straightening his shirt with meticulous fingers. “We’re still at the preliminary investigation, at the moment, because we suspect the subject we’re after has got a good security service in his brain, a militarized subconscious I dare to say…”

“Well, that’s nothing new, but you can’t lie straight to my face and say it’s only regular stuff, then”, Eames scoffs, getting back to a civilized sitting position in one swift motion. Arthur huffs in response.

“Did you come here to piss me off, Eames?”

“No, darling, of course not.”

There’s a moment of cautious silence in which Arthur shifts his weight from a feet to the other, before deciding to rest his ass against the edge of the desk and fold his arms, irritated.

_ Not irritated enough to tell Eames to fuck off yet, though. _

“Then why are you here? For sex? Don’t tell me you flied here from whichever tropical paradise you were wasting your money to just for a fuck!”, he indignantly squeals, his brow so furrowed Eames fears he might be suffer a full face paralysis soon.

“I wasn’t in a tropical paradise, if you really care about that, and I didn’t fly here for sex. What kind of a man do you think I am?”

Arthur prefers not to answer to that not-so-rhetorical question. 

“Then what are you here for? Did the team ask for your assistance?”

“No, actually they don’t even know that I’m here”, he vaguely says and Arthur’s face turns from upset to blatantly annoyed.

“Cut with the bullshit, Eames. Just tell me why you’re here and go away, if you’re not looking for a quickie.”

_ Fair enough. _

“We need to talk about Berlin, darling.”

Arthur gives him one of those proverbial ‘looks that can kill’ and then shrugs, the slightly merry atmosphere of their familiar bickering now gone. Again. 

“We’ve already talked about Berlin”, he says, stressing out the word  _ already  _ to make sure Eames can understand he doesn’t want to look into the matter any further, ever.

_ But Eames is Eames and nothing’s easy with Eames. _

“No, we haven’t, but, hey, listen”, he says, and Arthur shakes his head as if to dismiss another of his absurdities in advance. “Listen. There’s no need for us to kiss under the pouring rain and declare undying love for each other and, before you deny it, we both know that Berlin can only mean that there are feelings involved, all right?”

Arthur blushes slightly but what use could it be to deny the truth? Though he doesn’t know how or when he had developed feelings for the insufferable man in front of him or, on the other hand, how or when Eames had started feeling the same for him, there’s no use in denying it, not now that they’re here. Like a fool, he had thought he had been careful enough not to mix up commitment with casual sex, but...here they are, openly discussing about it.

_ Arthur can’t say this is a good evening at all. _

“All right, but what now?”, he’s barely able to whisper, through gritted teeth.

Eames shrugs.

“Since you love logic so much, I came up with the most logic solution we can agree to.”

“Which is…?”

He gives him a half, crooked smile that’s all lips and God knows how much Arthur loves those lips.

“Not working together anymore. Pretty simple. We work on different teams and...well, we can have our usual sex, spend our free times together, take some breaks even. I’ve got money, you’ve got money, so where’s the problem?”

_ Yeah, where’s the problem? _

Arthur starts biting at his thumbnail absentmindedly. This can be an idea, though, maybe the best way not to make another Berlin happen.

And, yes, Arthur would be really glad if no other Berlin happens, thanks.

 

“Eames?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Are you still sure you don’t want to have sex?”

Eames smirks. There’s always a hint of malice in the way his lips curl, making him look like a giant, smart cat ready to ambush a clueless mice.

“I never said I don’t want to have sex, darling”, he whispers, as if he was spilling out some sort of state secret instead of talking about sex.

_ And he’s so damn close, so damn close to his face Arthur can feel his warm breath on his lips. _

“We can think about your resolution after a fuck, if you’re okay with that…”

Arthur wholeheartedly hopes for Eames to agree.

  
  
  
  


  
  


**Author's Note:**

> My very first fanfiction for the Inception Fandom, even though I jumped on this train eight years later.  
> Ops.  
> Feedback gladly accepted and a very huge thanks to each and everyone of you that managed to read all of this work.  
> Really, thanks.


End file.
